


it doesn't matter where we go, we'll find a place we can call home

by wearetheonlyone



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Light Angst, Team as Family, they both miss their partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearetheonlyone/pseuds/wearetheonlyone
Summary: “Have you ever loved before?”Graham and the Doctor miss their wives.
Relationships: Grace O'Brien/Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 2
Kudos: 132





	it doesn't matter where we go, we'll find a place we can call home

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna chuck this in my drabble series but then I said nah it has too many tags so here we are, I wrote most of this at 3am so if its not literate do not come for me

“Have you ever loved before?” 

His words were heavy, thick and pungent as though they had been drenched within a sinful acid that poisoned the words as they left his lips. They don’t feel like his own, from his lips they were yet the words spoken were foreign to him, harsher than he thought he could be, grief and emptiness consuming him and his mind leeching onto the one he thought could understand- a chat amongst the elders, the ancient and the young.

“Course I have. There’s so much in this universe to love.” She chirps like a baby bird, sweet and innocent, only having seen the joy in the world- the pleasure and the bright, vast sky that draped itself around them rather than the horrors that laid below the nest. Yet she’s not focused on him, eyes drawn to the flashing lights, shining metals and clickable buttons of the console as though she were a magpie instead- though, it would make sense. Her, a thieving baby magpie, and him a guide, a way for her to bounce back.

He sighs, louder than he wanted to but the day had been long, tiring, and everything seemed louder in the console room, as though he was speaking into a crypt in the dead of night. It was probably some alien thing, was his only thought, fixed his hearing- made him feel younger, or hear younger. “Yeah, but have you ever been _in love_ , you know, with a person?” He probes, words catching and staggering in his dry throat like a steep mountain, the syllables scuttering away into a dark cavern within him, afraid to speak up against her.

“Yeah, course. Absolutely. I have, plenty of times before.” Her voice withers and wilts, words dying and crumbling into ash and bone as she speaks them. He can hear hope die on her tongue, worlds shattering and lives ending as she simply stares, body frozen and eyes cold like ice- even the flickering twists, turns and gadgets hastily grappled and stacked on the console were not enough to distract her.

“Where are they?” His tongue curdles, like sour, out-of-date milk and he feels nauseous from his own words as regret built and bubbled in his throat like bile. Horror clung to his lungs, shot into his veins as he visibly saw the colour drain from her face in an animated fashion that suited her so well normally, her fizzing and bubbling cartoonish attitude matching her animated facial expressions, yet here it was out of place, sickening and wrong.

His words were gnawing at her, like a wolf with dull teeth, just rubbing and desperately trying to break her but they failed and her body just froze, accepted the pain- even the small, blonde hairs at the back of her neck shot up, remaining motionless despite the breeze drifting through his own hair seemingly from nowhere, the door sealed in front of them. 

“Gone now, but forever with me.” Trembling, her hand rose up, slow and cautious as though it were separate from her and she was forced to coax it to where she wanted it. Her hand thumped against her chest once - a pause - then twice more in succession. If this were a normal conversation, she would have beamed, bounced around the console like a clock-work toy but now her turn had run out and she needed to be wound up again, and he was far too dainty to repair a toy as strong as she nor one as old.

“How do you cope, Doc? Being without Grace… it’s difficult. Something I never thought about- thought the cancer would get me first.” There’s melancholy seeping into his words, uncontrollable amounts pouring into them, dousing them in the substance and she can feel that same melancholy thrum around her bloodstream, pass through her hearts.

“It’s not coping- it’s moving forward, carrying them with you.” Is her reply, an echo of the words she had said on the day they first met. _’I carry them with me’_ , and he has to say, it’s not a bad way to cope, or not cope- but it’s difficult, to adjust to something so hard and so sudden like having a rug pulled out from under you.

He has to ask, if he’s crossed a line now he might as well toe his way along the rest of them. “Do you still love them?”

“You never stop loving them because love - true love - doesn’t fade, it only continues to grow and blossom within your chest, within your hearts, or heart for you lot. It’s like that human saying ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’, except the distance is time, the time you spend apart from them until you’re reunited and when you see them again, there’s so much love that you didn’t even know existed because of the distance that it’s just overwhelming. Imagine it, feeling nothing but joy and love. What a world that would be. It just begs the question, though, how can you know if you truly love someone enough to let your love grow like that? There’s no way of telling, only distance, patience, and time.” 

When she finishes, the console quiet and tea is cold.

**Author's Note:**

> my twitters if u want them: @weretheonlyone @snufkinnnie  
> title from 'home' by Josef Salvat because I love moominvalley


End file.
